The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board continues to struggle with a question that it’s been poking at for years: how much it’s willing to spend to continue the operations of Stony Point Center outside New York City.
The board, meeting by conference call April 24 (part of that in closed session) voted to authorize spending up to $630,750, for “critical expenditures” for capital improvements at Stony Point, a conference center about an hour outside New York City that also is home to an interfaith community. The board also gave permission for the board’s Coordinating Committee to approve additional spending for a roofing project involving two buildings at Stony Point should bids for doing that work exceed initial estimates, and once money from a fund held at the Presbyterian Foundation for support of one of those buildings has been used.
Discussion during the open portion of the meeting, however, showed that some board members still are uncomfortable with how much the … [Read more...]

The 2018 statistical report for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shows a continuing decline for the denomination in both membership and the number of churches, although the rate of decline may be slowing slightly.
The PC(USA) lost 62,375 active members from 2017 to 2018, dropping from 1,415,053 members in 2017 to 1,352,678 in 2018 (a decrease of 4.4%).
That compares to a membership decline of 67,714 members from 2016 to 2017 (a decrease of 4.5%).
The PC(USA) also has fewer churches. The number of churches in the denomination dropped by 143 over the last year – from 9,304 in 2017 to 9,161 in 2018. While fewer churches than in recent years were dismissed to other denominations (34 in 2018, compared with 45 the previous year) the PC(USA) continues to see churches dissolved as they become too small to continue operating – with 108 churches dissolved in 2018, while only 20 new churches were organized.
The Office of the General Assembly is looking for good news in the … [Read more...]

LOUISVILLE – There’s been a lot of discussion about the role white evangelical Christians played in the 2016 presidential election. And what’s on a lot of people’s minds now is: What’s likely for 2020?
Robert P. Jones, a religion researcher who’s the founder and chief executive officer of the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, is winner of the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his book “The End Of White Christian America,” published in 2016.
On April 9, Jones spoke at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary about the trajectory he has chronicled of the declining influence of white Protestants in American public life. What the research shows are demographic and opinion trends that are likely to produce real shifts in the nation’s political life – if not immediately, then in the not-too-distant future.
In his book, Jones wrote this: “White Christian America had its golden age in the 1950s, after the hardships and victories of World War II and before the … [Read more...]

On April 1, an invitation went out: for Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations and mid councils to declare themselves to be Matthew 25 churches. In doing that, they commit to working on at least one of the three emphases of the Presbyterian Mission Agency: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and ending systemic poverty.
Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, spoke with the Outlook’snational reporter, Leslie Scanlon, about her hopes for the Matthew 25 vision. Here’s an edited version of that conversation.
What does accepting this invitation mean for a congregation or presbytery? If they accept the invitation, what are they agreeing to do?
“I see it as a vision, to be a church that is committed to active engagement in the world.”
Some churches and mid councils are already doing Matthew 25 work, and “it’s important for our denomination to know – this is ground up,” Moffett said. The General Assembly … [Read more...]

LOUISVILLE – Presbyterian leaders concluded a week of policy-making meetings in Kentucky, with the boards of the Presbyterian Mission Agency and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation – meeting in different rooms at the same hotel – considering everything from financial matters to use of the denomination’s national offices in Louisville. Here’s some of what happened March 29.
Translation services
The board of the A Corporation – which is the corporate entity of the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) and the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) – voted to create a new position of manager of global language services for the PC(USA), and to begin the process of creating a job description.
What has been referred to as Translation Services will be known as Global Language Services, “hoping to be more accurately descriptive and expansive,” said Julie Cox, a mid council executive and A Corporation board member who leads the board’s Translation Services Task … [Read more...]

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a denomination of connections - and the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board spent time in its March 28 meeting exploring what that means.
Herbert Nelson, stated clerk of the PC(USA), brought greetings – saying both the denomination and Christianity are in a time of transition, “and it feels good.”
People of faith are working together on contextual issues in their communities and learning that “Christendom is a whole lot bigger than our own church, our own denomination,” Nelson said. Christians are struggling to “become the church that Jesus Christ wants us to be. It is not always comfortable. … We are walking in God’s way until the answers come.”
Cindy Kohlmann, who serves as co-moderator of the 2018 General Assembly along with Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri, brought greetings on behalf of them both, as Cintrón-Olivieri is grounded at home in Miami because of illness.
Kohlmann summarized their travels since the assembly last summer, … [Read more...]